Chapter 14. MODULAR TRAINING AS A TECHNOLOGY AND FORM OF ADULT EDUCATION

In the 60s of the 20th century, a new learning technology appeared in colleges and universities in the United States, which is called modular training. The essence of it was that the curriculum on the subject and the corresponding didactic materials were broken down into a certain number of parts of the modules, each of which had its own completeness in content. In this case, the module was supplied with instructions for students to study the material included in it. The names "modular instructions" and "modular curricula" appear. Let us clarify that in the USA the curriculum includes didakEticheskie materials and is called the Latin word curriculum ("curriculum"). Note that the first modular training options emerged in schools, where large parts of the school day, or even whole days, were devoted to the study of a single subject.

Module-based learning has several positive effects. In a student, a student armed with didactic materials and instructions gains greater independence in the development of a school subject. Secondly, the function of the teacher from the lecture is shifted to the consulting one, while the student decreases the share of passive perception of the material and there is an opportunity to actively discuss it with the teacher. In the first place and x, there appear intermediate control points for mastering the material that coincide with the end of each module. This control is important for both the student and the teacher. Fourthly, there is an easier mastering of the whole subject by step-by-step study of the modules completed on the content.

Modular training has spread widely in American universities and colleges, and then found its supporters in Western European schools. From modular programs in individual subjects, educational institutions are moving to the development of integrated modular curricula, covering training in specialties. Moreover, modular education comes to advanced training institutes, business schools, as well as various postgraduate education programs of various duration. It is effective for working adults seeking to improve their skills. Training follows module by module, between which there may be long breaks. But each module is a small but complete advanced training stage, focused on the study of a particular subject or part thereof. The module ends with the issuance of a certificate. Accumulated certificates are counted in case of continuing education and obtaining a diploma of completing the next stage of education or of passing training in a new specialty.

The modular technology of learning outlined above operated on the content of school subjects, which subjected to division into parts — modules. We emphasize that modular education originated in universities, where specialists of intellectual work are trained, where the tasks of mastering a large amount of information on various branches of knowledge are set. However, in addition to specialties that require higher education, there are working specialties, and in order to master many of them, modular training is also required, and in the future, further training. Moreover, the constant change in technology, production and market conditions leads to the fact that in modern conditions in developed countries, an average worker changes his specialty at least five times during his working life.

This raises the problem of rapid retraining, and therefore, one that would give exactly the knowledge and skills that are needed to work in this specialty on this equipment. In 1965, in Turin (Italy), the International Labor Organization (ILO) created the International Training Center for Modular Training. He bases his work on the basis of accurate analysis and description of activities, functions (modes of activity) and actions of an employee of a particular specialty. In this case, individual actions and operations for each function are described. In order to master these actions and operations, brief visual educational materials have been developed, which are called MES (Modules of Emploies Skills - Workers' Skills Modules). In domestic publications, this abbreviation is disclosed as "modules of professional skills" or "modules of labor skills." As a rule, one training module is devoted to the description of a complex action consisting of a number of simple ones. It consists of educational elements describing these simple actions. Moreover, the descriptions are made so that the action can be easily mastered.

In practice, one training element is a single sheet of paper (or one frame on a computer screen), which contains brief instructions on how to perform an action, and graphic images of tools, equipment, and sometimes the actions themselves. Some elements and modules have the character of introductory, giving a general instructive description, others - controls, aimed at checking the mastering of actions. Working with training modules and elements as with instructions, students independently master actions. The instructor-teacher, who has an expanded set of training modules with recommendations for training, exercises general control over the work of the group in classrooms and workshops and, if necessary, consults individual students. He also remains the final control of learning. With this version of the modular technology, a student of the same group can work with different modules and elements, and each of them can master the actions and operations at their own pace.

Specialists who are developing a modular training option based on MES emphasize that when creating training modules, it is necessary to follow a unified approach to the analysis of professional activity. This is what makes it possible to expand the applicability of training modules for training and advanced training in various specialties and professions, since many of them include the performance of identical actions and functions. A simple example: the skills of using a measuring tool are needed by both the machine worker, the mechanic, and the operator of automatic lines. This allows you to effectively use the strength of the developers of training modules, creating banks of training modules and thereby quickly encompassing training in new specialties. In addition, training centers respond quickly and flexibly to changes in their professional activities. The modular technology for the training and development of workers proved so successful that in 1972 the World Conference on Education, organized by UNESCO, recommended the modular system as the most successful for lifelong adult education. In general, the ILO modular technology is based on the activity approach to the definition of learning content.

Later, at the very beginning of the 80s of XX century. in the framework of the ILO’s approach to modular training, the first training programs for the training of lower-level managers, made up of specially developed modules, appear. Thus, the scope of this modular technology option is expanding due to the transition from working to managerial specialties.

In Russia, the first version of the organization of adult education, close to the ideas of modularity, appeared in the 20s of the last century at the Moscow State Electric Engineering Institute, which existed until 1933. During Soviet times, the modular technology developed by the ILO was first used in the 1980s XX century. in Lithuania, at the Republican Institute for Advanced Studies of Executives and Specialists. It began to develop modular programs used in the advanced training of engineering personnel. Each modular content program corresponded to the academic discipline and was divided in accordance with the logic of the study into separate modules, which, in accordance with the ILO approach, were divided into educational elements. Each training element was presented on a separate sheet of paper in landscape format.

Of course, the development of modular adult education ideas was influenced by the work that began in the 1980s in the system of vocational education, first the Soviet Union and then the Russian Federation. It was here that the concept of block-modular learning was developed, bringing together the ideas of the subject and activity approaches to education based on modules. The first educational institution of supplementary professional education, which carried out the entire educational process on the basis of a modular approach, was created in 1990 in St. Petersburg (OMIS Educational Center, whose name stands for “educational modular interactive systems”). The entire educational process in the center, where they receive training and advanced training in various specialties and programs, is built from separate modules. According to the content, they are developed taking into account the analysis of professional activity. Each module of about 30 training hours is studied during the week. There are proportional modules at 60 and 90 hours, which take place respectively for 2 and 3 weeks. From here there are various options for their passage for different students, depending on the initial level of their training and individual wishes. You can start learning from different subjects from any week of the year.

In January 1995, the first ILO project on modular training in Russia began work in St. Petersburg. Gradually, educational institutions from different regions of Russia are involved in the project. This leads not only to an increase in the volume of the adult population undergoing training, retraining and advanced training in modular programs, but also to an increase in the number of these programs.

To date, many different modular learning technology options have been created. All new and new modular training programs, modular study guides are being developed. Educational institutions offer modules and modular training courses. Modular training as a technology in its various modifications is applied and developed in universities, advanced training institutes, business schools, and training centers. In some cases, when it comes to organizing modular education throughout the school, we can speak of it as a specific form, along with external studies and other options for adult education.

Perhaps it is precisely due to the variety of modular learning options and its popularity that it is difficult to give a precise definition of the term “module” itself. Too narrow a definition, coming from a particular application, cuts off those new developments that do not fit into it. Too wide is fraught with loss of specificity, when it will be difficult to draw a distinction between the training module and the training unit and even a lesson. However, in practice such cases are encountered, and, probably, in the future such a situation will either continue, or specialists in the field of pedagogy and andragogy will come to an unambiguous interpretation of the term “module”.

Explanatory dictionaries provide different interpretations of the term "module" depending on the branch of knowledge in which it is used. The original meaning of the Latin word "moshulus" is a measure, and it came from architecture with the emergence of the principle of proportionality of parts of a structure (the ancients took the diameter of the lower base of the column as a measure). In the future, with the development of technology, proportionality in some cases gave way to autonomy. In radio engineering, the module began to be called a device unit capable of autonomously performing a number of functions; an astronaut module appeared in the space program, for example, a vehicle descending to the planet’s surface, or a space station module. At the same time, in a number of areas of science and practice, the module retained a value of proportionality. Winners can be found in architecture, clothing and furniture design, print advertising.

Comparing the above cases of using the term "module" with various modular technology options, we draw attention to the fact that the modules developed in the framework of the activity approach developed in ILO training centers are characterized rather by autonomy. After all, activity can be represented as a variable sequence of actions and operations. And in this sense, actions are independent of each other. In this approach, uniformity refers to the content, not the process (one module is mastered by different students at different speeds).

The practice of additional vocational education is characterized by the tendency to organize the study of modules in a concentrated and short time. One example of such a trend has been described above. Obtaining specific practical results in a short time corresponds to the modern needs of the people themselves, and production. Moreover, both practice and research results show that in terms of volume and preservation of knowledge and skills, the efficiency of concentrated adult education is higher distributed where different prediages alternate during the school day and week; one more positive effect of concentrated moral education - a tangible result obtained by students in a short time motivates them to successfully continue their studies.

Promising areas of development of modular training are those that are being born on the paths of its interpenetration with computer and distance learning. If at the beginning of the development of modular programs, they sought to use the capabilities of the computer and shift them from the “manual” to the computer version of information representation and knowledge control, then the developers of computer training programs themselves turned their attention to the methodological possibilities of modular training. A similar picture occurs in distance learning, for which modular technology is an effective way of organizing educational material and the sequence of its development.

Questions for self-control

1. In your opinion, is modular training more technologically advanced than traditional? If so, why?

2. What is required for the organization of classes using modular technology? Are costs high? And if so, how can they be justified?

3. What are the prospects for modular learning and its possible transformation?

Recommended literature

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